telchar

I don't disagree that levels 2/3 are a danger zone in self-driving technology, but I feel the need to point out that there are plenty of people who are disabled or suffer chronic injuries resulting from being rear-ended. Stop and go traffic can be plenty dangerous as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if they had to file a suspicious activity report for every one of those checks.

To be fair I see plenty of people about running with their dog and/or a baby or toddler in a stroller around here. A little creativity goes a long way if one is motivated.

The FCC has to have two opposition party commissioners. If it weren't Pai it would be someone else from the party sound the same things. Everything Pai is doing is 100% on the Republicans. If they were opposed they could easily stop him.

I'm just clearing up some confusion about definitions here, not making any comment on enforcing rights.

For me I don't really care whether ads are targeted or untargeted. It's the data collection they use to target the ads that's the real concern. I suspect that's true for most people but for some reason these discussions are typically framed as targeted vs untargeted, which IMO misses the point.

That said, I also really don't like seeing ads at all.

You have those backward. Natural rights, at least, are considered to exist before and outside of government. Enumerated rights may derive from government, as do privileges. The "lege" in privilege literally means "law".

Enumerated rights are the rights the GP was talking about. These are defined in law, though may derive from natural rights.

There are plenty of people who move to large cities for better jobs, these people could just remain in the town they already live in instead. The problem you point out then becomes a benefit.

There are also people who move when they retire, or when they have kids. This could facilitate that happening earlier which would also reduce the pressure on housing in cities.

I feel the same way. Between that and my overuse of my phone for checking hn, reddit, etc. I am considering trying to make a habit of leaving my phone at home when I leave the house, at least some of the time. It's a shame that I feel that way about such an incredible useful device, but there it is.

The charge/discharge efficiency for compressed air is terrible since most of the energy gets wasted as heat. This plus the terrible volumetric energy storage density makes it a nonstarter for most applications.

I'd suggest that a solution to the demand problem is basic income. Let those who can and want to move out to the sticks and live on UBI. There are a nearly unlimited number of places with low cost of living and ample or potentially ample housing. Why does everyone want to move to SF and NY? It's not the poop on the sidewalk, it's mostly the jobs. Fewer people having to move to big cities for work (especially those who prefer the country) means less housing pressure.

I think UBI would significantly help relieve housing pressure in large metro areas and perhaps help revitalize some currently-dying small towns and rural areas, which after all will need more services with increased population.

"This is why Netflix randomly execute some of their employees every month"

Would that be their King Kong application?

I think you're disregarding that these are huge companies whose business models and moats would be significantly disrupted by a GDPR-like law. To quote GoT, chaos is a ladder. This could help new innovative companies compete, at least in the short term, against these established behemoths.

Does this apply to bags that aren't of the grocery bag type? Take for example the large linked plastic bubbles that Amazon and such use as padding in their boxes. They have a recycling mark on them (#4, I think), but I'm never sure whether to mix them in with the grocery bags, which I separate from other recyclables, or with the other recyclables.

When you say "you" here, do you mean "you" or the BOFH somewhere who controls the Exchange server? I stopped opening Lync at work because, among other issues, it wouldn't save conversations and I couldn't figure out how to make it do so.

I suspect a big part of this problem is private brands. When 100 people can order the same cheap flashlight from a no-name factory in China and list it on Amazon as their own product there is a lot of incentive to fake reviews to get an advantage over the other sellers. And the huge number of product listings just makes it that much harder to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I would like to see Amazon raise the barrier to entry to prevent fly-by-night sellers from listing the same crappy products. I give up sometimes when looking for something after seeing dozens or hundreds of pages of the same thing listed under different brands from different sellers.

Is there really so much benefit to having everyone and their uncle selling on Amazon? I can go to Ebay for that. As Amazon becomes no more trustworthy than Ebay I lost my incentive to shop there.

It was pretty clear in the video.

I myself was charged for a much lesser distraction a while back involving a crash in which I was the only one at risk and for which the other driver shared equal blame. If I had run down a pedestrian I have no doubt the charges would have been severe.

Exactly so, 99% of people have never heard of posidriv and don't have the bits, or don't know they have the bits. I couldn't find anywhere in instructions or the website where Ikea mentions that you should use them, but sure enough every screw used posidriv.

On rent control and gentrification I don't have a strong opinion right now. But I'd argue that if one has the means to buy but chooses not to, I can't feel bad for them if they get pushed out by rising rents. Buying a house is a good way to establish roots in a community. For those who can't afford to buy I feel that the argument that gentrification is harmful has some merit though, of course if the renter has started in a bad neighborhood I wouldn't think it would typically be that expensive to buy.

To use your analogy, if you don't put a ring on it you might lose it [your partner]. At least if one is divorced there is likely some alimony.

I suspect much of the real problem with gentrification involves the legacy of redlining and other abuses of vulnerable populations, like predatory contract loans and subprime mortgages. If populations such as inner-city blacks weren't systematically prevented from purchasing property in past decades gentrification would probably be much less a hot-button issue.

You mean the video that showed the safety driver staring at a cell phone for 6 full seconds right up until nearly the moment of impact? Maybe that would have exonerated the driver, but only to prove how perverse our driving laws are. But in my state the driver would have been convicted.

Sure, if you want to move fast and disrupt yada yada. They shouldn't be putting hack-job self-driving cars on public roads. Either do some engineering so that they keep the backup system in place or keep it on a test track. This is Chernobyl-like irresponsibility.

Do you have some evidence that every city does it? That sounds like an unreasonable assumption to me. If it's the case I would think there would be quite a bit of evidence of various cities doing it, given how many there are.

It's unfortunate that Ikea doesn't seem to publicize this or provide drive heads with their furniture (AFAIR). I was glad I picked some up before I did a kitchen with Ikea cabinets. It saved me a lot of grief.

I was there that day, it was pretty amazing.

100% agreed that this sort of thing can't really be done on individual initiative - it just makes you look like the only jerk in the building. Same with trying to keep people from holding their loud conversations next to your desk, or put phones on vibrate/mute. If the bosses don't push solutions for these things, they don't happen.

Yes they are. An ideal stirling engine has the Carnot level efficiency, i.e. maximum theoretical efficiency for a heat engine.

https://blog.mide.com/thermodynamic-theory-of-the-ideal-stir...

To be fair, that argument depends on the properties of evolved pathogens. A designed pathogen, in the context of the GP post, would not necessarily be bound by that dilemma.

Yes, it's mentioned in the video mentioned in the article.

Can you defend the huge marketing budgets of the pharma companies? I have to imagine any new-drug-awareness or training for physician roles covered currently by marketing could be filled adequately at pennies on the dollar compared to current marketing spend. Advertising and marketing are largely zero-sum so we should be able to trim quite a bit of fat there without impacting health outcomes (although cable companies and other advertising platforms would take a hit).

I think it's reasonable to not be totally comfortable with that. But can you think of a better system?

To address the important scientist point you made, I could see it being in the interest of society to give some people extra special care (e.g. the US president gets top care), although mostly it's hard to value what should qualify someone, as you say. I think in some heartstrings cases we see GoFundMe's and such filling the gap; perhaps that's the proper role for charity in the system?